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Listeria probe seeks food safety overhaul

A sweeping investigation into the deadly outbreak of bacteria linked to deli meats has found the food safety system must be overhauled before Canadians can again have confidence in what they eat.

Independent investigator Sheila Weatherill speaks during a press conference in Ottawa on July 21, 2009, regarding her report on the 2008 listeriosis outbreak. (SEAN KILPATRICK / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

By Joanna SmithOTTAWA BUREAU

Wed., July 22, 2009

OTTAWA – A sweeping investigation into the deadly outbreak of bacteria linked to deli meats has found the food safety system must be overhauled before Canadians can again have confidence in what they eat.

"What we found is that last summer our food safety system did not work as perfectly as it needed to," independent investigator Sheila Weatherill said in Ottawa yesterday after releasing her report into the listeriosis crisis that killed at least 22 Canadians and sickened hundreds more.

"The investigation has made clear that much more could have been done to prevent this from happening in the first place," she said. "Much more must be done to make sure it does not happen again."

There were fears the six-month probe Prime Minister Stephen Harper ordered in January would be a whitewash because it was not held in public and Weatherill did not have the ability to subpoena witnesses.

But the damning 156-page report finds fault among many government areas and says confusion and foot-dragging hampered the federal response to a national emergency, leaving Canadians unsure about the risks they were facing.

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The report found last summer's crisis was complicated by the relationships between governments and between the public and private sectors.

"We learned in hindsight it is very, very much easier to see a sequence of events that led to the outbreak after the fact and to identify steps that could or should have been taken," Weatherill said.

For example, the probe pointed to the fact that executives at Maple Leaf Foods were kept in the dark about positive test results for the Listeria monocytogenes pathogen at its Bartor Rd. plant in Toronto having popped up more than a year before the outbreak, because everyone thought cleaning the equipment had solved the problem.

Employees were not required to report the increased frequency of listeria at the plant to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and federal food inspectors were under no obligation to ask to see the results.

The report also found:

A common theme among the report's 57 recommendations – arrived at after more than 100 interviews, five million pages of documentation and $2.7 million in public funding – is that the federal government needs to make food safety a bigger priority.

Weatherill urged the government to keep it in mind while setting its agenda for the fall.

"Although Canada is already a leader in food safety practices and systems, the government should clearly and emphatically commit to the safety of food as one of its top priorities," she wrote in the report.

The report says manufacturers should be required to design easy-to-clean meat-processing equipment to limit the spread of bacteria.

It says Canada's chief public health officer should be given a greater role during outbreaks of food-borne illnesses, and should tip the federal government to any suspected health threats.

But Weatherill stopped short of calling for more resources for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency because, "due to the lack of detailed information and differing views heard," she was unable to determine what resources it now has.

She recommended a third-party audit to determine how many inspectors are required.

Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz said he welcomed the idea of new food safety legislation as a way to implement the recommendations.

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